Album: Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto (Parlophone / EMI)

Hearing for the first time the songs that will, inevitably and inexorably, become part of the fabric of Western life from X Factor auditions to shopping-centre muzak, is a strange and often depressing experience.

Mylo Xyloto is already guaranteed bigness, by the very fact of being the fifth album by Coldplay. But it takes no chances. This is a record that browbeats and bullies you into submission with its sheer massiveness, courtesy of producer Brian Eno.

"Hurts Like Heaven", the first song (barring the overture), sounds like LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" played by idiots in boxing gloves, and that level of subtlety continues through every synth-smothered second.

At one point, unbelievably, Martin actually sings, straight-faced, "I'd rather be a comma than a full-stop". Strange. He has much more in common with a colon.